Sunday, March 7, 2010

Early Church: The Balance We Need

I remember one day, talking to my neighbor, his name is Ted, sharing with him what God was teaching me those days, it was about finding the balance in the Christian life. God was teaching me about the differences we have in the Christian church: Traditional, Pentecostal and Liberal. They are known by their priority. The Traditional is all about Teaching the Bible, the Pentecostal the Powerful Prayer and the Liberal the Good Deeds. We had a good time together, sharing God’s vision for His church and also “breaking the bread”, in our case, barbecuing. At that time, I was part of a church where the sanctuary looks like a modern chapel. What was amazing about it was that a couple weeks after talking to Ted about that balance, the senior pastor preached about it. His message was really good, he was totally convincing that we had to pursue that balance. I thought to myself: “Man, will we have a revival here or what?” Well, like always, my expectations were sky high, but, up to this day I didn’t hear anything about a revival there, because if we become like the early church, having those three components together, we will turn our town, state, country, world, upside down Acts 17:5-6. The problem is when God give us a Vision or a Dream, only God can make that Vision or Dream to become reality, like He did in the early church (Acts). In the early church they had the correct teaching, the Apostles’ Doctrine, Acts 2:42; they had the Powerful Prayer, Acts 4:31Acts 12:5-10; and they had the Good Deeds Acts 2:44-47. I know is extremely difficult to have this kind of balance (I'm dying to have it), but, if we don’t pay the price to have it, we’ll never have it. It doesn't mean God doesn't want us to have it, only that we’re not willing to pay the price to have it.
Conclusion: Considering that we are the Church, the Temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19, this balance has to begin with us, we cannot tolerate false doctrines, we cannot be contempt with our powerless prayer and we must love our neighbor as ourselves. If we do that, we will “contaminate” others and our congregation (church) will be like the early church (Acts): Powerful Words, Powerful Prayer and Powerful Deeds either gaining the world for Jesus or being persecuted by the world, but, never being conformed to the world. Romans 12:2.

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